• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
• /
• v.37 no.6
• /
• pp.439-449
• /
• 2023

This study was conducted to verify the role of forest roads in the extinction of large forest fires in Korea. The study area was the forest fire-damaged area of Gangneung City, Gangwon Special Self-Governing Province, in April 2023, which is one of the areas with the highest road density among the major forest fires that have occurred so far. The scope of the forest fire damage area was confirmed through on-site survey, and the intensity of the fire was carried out through Sentinel-2 satellite imagery analysis. After that, the relationship between the damage range and intensity and the forest road was examined. About 59.6 km of roads were built within 50 m from the boundary of the forest fire damage area, which can easily access the entire 149.1 ha of forest fire damaged area. The road density is as high as 168.9 m/ha. All forests that were fragmented by roads were fragmented into 83 places, and all of these forests could be judged to have spread by spotting fire. As a result of analyzing the distribution of damage intensity by distance from the road to see the extent of damage according to the ease of access of fire extinguishing vehicles, it was confirmed that the proportion of areas with low-intensity damage has increased sharply even from 75 m or more away from the road. The results of analyzing the distribution of damage intensity by altitude to see the extent of damage according to the ease of access of fire extinguishing showed that the proportion of areas with low-intensity damage increased as the altitude increased, while the proportion of areas with damage of more than strong intensity decreased as the altitude increased. It was confirmed that there is no data that roads inside or adjacent to forests in the forest fire area of Gangneung City are effective in extinguishing forest fires. These results are contrary to the logic that increasing the road density in forests is effective in extinguishing forest fires. In the case of this fire area in Gangneung City, the road density is 43 times higher than the current road density in Korea claimed by the Korea Forest Service of 3.9 m/ha. This study suggests that roads can be a hindrance to extinguishing forest fires.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.48-58
• /
• 2003

Recently in order to extinguish the large scale of forest fire efficiently and rapidly the forest fire extinguishment equipment such as helicopters and vehicles has been mobilized. In this situation, the most consideration for the effective extinguishment is to understand the forest fire surrounding area and situation very well and arrange and manage the extinguishment equipment timely. In this paper, the client/serve-based forest fire extinguishment helicopter management system was constructed by integrating GPS(global positioning system) and GIS(geographic information system) technologies. This system manages and considers not only extinguishment equipment information such as helicopters and vehicles including manpower arrangement but also extinguishment environment information such as storing reservoir status and road situation and so on. For this, the real time tracking of helicopter location was first acquired through GPS technology then all the information about forest fire surrounding area was offered through the user-friendly interface of GIS concept. The result of constructing this system helps to extinguish a large scale of forest fire rapidly and effectively within shorter time then reduces physical damage and much manpower mobilization.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
• /
• 2015.05a
• /
• pp.89-92
• /
• 2015

In this paper, we propose a method to reduce the fire suppression time. Our suggestions can secure a safe area according to the diffusion path and speed of the fire, forest fire prediction minimize casualties and property damage forests. The existing path prediction method wildfire spread predict the wildfire spread model and speed through topography, weather, fuel factor and the image information. In this case, however, occur to control a large mountain huge costs. Also Focus on the diffusion model predictions and the path identified by the problem arises that insufficient efforts to ensure the safe area. In this paper, we estimate the moving direction and speed of fire at a lower cost, and proposes an algorithm to ensure the safety zone for fire suppression. The proposed algorithm is a technique to analyze the attribute information that temperature, wind, smoke measured over time. According to our algorithm forecast wildfire moving direction and ensure the safety zone. By analyzing the moving speed and the moving direction of the simulated fire in a given environment is expected to be able to quickly reduce the damage to the forest fire fighters.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.31 no.3B
• /
• pp.221-232
• /
• 2011

Applicability of three soil erosion models for burnt hillslopes was evaluated. The models were estimated with the data from plots established after tremendous wildfire occurred in the east coastal region. Soil erosion and surface runoff were simulated by the Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) and the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) of application mode for disturbed forest areas and the Soil Erosion Model for Mountain Areas (SEMMA) developed for burnt hillslopes. Simulated sediment yield and surface runoff were compared with the measured those. In maximum value of sediment yield, three models was under-predicted and RUSLE and WEPP had difference of over two times. SEMMA showed the best model response coefficient, determination coefficient and the model efficiency. In application of models to the soil erosion according to the elapsed year after wildfire, all models were underestimated in initial stage disturbed by wildfire. Evaluation of models in this burnt hillslopes was shown the tends to under-predict soil erosion for larger measured values. Although a lot of sediment can be generated in small rainfall event as fine-grained soil of the high water repellency was exposed excessively right after wildfire, this under-prediction was shown that those models have a limit to estimate the weighted factors by wildfire.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
• /
• v.17 no.2 s.52
• /
• pp.225-233
• /
• 2007

The engineering properties of surface soils in natural terrain are changed due to wildfire. This change of engineering properties induced by wildfire is related to landslides occurrence. To investigate the change of soil properties caused by wildfire, the various soil tests are performed. The soil samples are obtained from the recently burned slopes of Yangyang area, Kangwon Province. The soil samples obtained from the burned slopes are classified into three types depending on the burning grade: the perfect burning grade, the intermediate burning grade, the non-burning grade. As the result of tests, the specific gravity and the dry unit weight of soils obtained from perfect and alternative burning grades are less than those of soils obtained from non-burning grade. It judges that an electronic force, ionic components and of soils are changed and organic matters in soils are burned by wildfire. The permeability of soil obtained from alternative burning grade is the lowest and that of soil obtained from perfect burning grade is the highest. The water-repellent layer is formed on soil surface by wildfire. The water-repellent layer is existed at the area of alternative turning grade, while the layer is not existed at the area of perfect burning grade. The water-repellent layer is collapsed in high temperature more than about $400^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
• /
• v.5 no.4
• /
• pp.93-105
• /
• 2002

In this paper forest fire status information management system was developed under web environment using web GIS(geographic information system) technology. Though this system, general users can easily retrieval domestic forest fire status information and obtain that in visual way such as maps, graphs, and texts if they have only certain web browsers. Moreover, officials, who have system access authority, can easily control and manage all domestic forest fire status information through input interface, retrieval interface, and out interface of the system. This system can be considered as the first domestic system to manage forest fire status data and service them in visual through user friendly interfaces on web. In order to implement this system, IIS 5.0 of Microsoft is used as web server and Oracle 8i and ASP(active server page) are used for database construction and dynamic web page operation, respectively. Also, ArcGIS IMS(internet map server) of ESRI is used to serve maps by using Java and HTML as system development languages. Not only the domestic tendency of forest fire but also the forest fire status information of certain area and time such as the frequency and the loss can be presented through distribution maps, graphs and tables. Therefore, this system is supposed to play as a important role when the policy relate to domestic forest fire is established. In addition, the self consciousness of people against forest fire can be inspired and the foundation of scientific and systemic forest fire services can be obtained through this system in the future.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
• /
• v.97 no.1
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 2008

It is necessary to examine relationship between spatial patterns of forest types and characteristics of forest fires for efficient management of fire and forest. By the ecoregions of South Korea, we computed landscape indices for whole types of forests(landscape level) and pine forests(class level), and analyzed characteristics of forest fires using statistics of forest fires from 1991 to 2006. We performed canonical correlation analysis to model the relationship between the landscape indices and the statistics of forest fires. At landscape level, forest patches were larger and more complex in the ecoregions which had higher percentage of forest area. At class level, pine forest patches were more complex and closer to neighbor patches in the coastal ecoregions. The ecoregions including metropolitan areas and cities had more frequent fire occurrences per 1,000ha, while mountainous coastal ecoregions had more burned areas and faster spread of fire growth rate. The canonical correlation between the landscape indices for pine forests and the statistics of forest fires was statistically significant at the 0.05 level and explained more than 70% of the variation in fire variables. The results showed that combustion time per fire was longer in the ecoregions which had larger and more aggregated pine forest patches.

• Fire Science and Engineering
• /
• v.27 no.3
• /
• pp.38-46
• /
• 2013

Permanent water supply and water sprinkling systems are essential to protect major forests and facilities from forest fire. Back in 2005, Naksan Temple, a valuable cultural asset of Korea, was burned down in a forest fire that took place in Yangyang. This started a series of movements including installing water supply facilities and managing forests near important cultural assets. As for the existing facilities, however, they were installed without any standard guidelines for management and installation according to each constructor's specifications, which were based on the National Fire Safety Code 109. Unfortunately, this is not effective in protecting facilities from forest fires such as they have a small protection area, limited simultaneous sprinkling, and a difficult the movement of fire hose. Against this background, the study examines the condition of water supply facilities currently in use, identifies their deficiencies, and suggests how to improve the criteria for water supply service to effectively prevent forest fire. Specifically, three systems were proposed: Water Sprinkler Tower System for preventing spread of crown fires, and Forest Fire Hydrant System and Portable Water Spray System to be effective for suppressing surface fires. In addition, the standards on the performance and components of water pumps are also suggested.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
• /
• v.38 no.6_3
• /
• pp.1847-1859
• /
• 2022

Wildfires in North Korea can have a directly or indirectly affect South Korea if they go south to the Demilitarized Zone. Therefore, this study calculates the regional optimized Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) based on Local Data Assessment and Prediction System (LDAPS) weather data to obtain forest fire risk in North Korea, and applied it to the cases in Goseong-gun and Cheorwon-gun, North Korea in April 2022. As a result, the suitability was confirmed as the FFDI at the time of ignition corresponded to the risk class Extreme and Severe sections, respectively. In addition, a qualitative comparison of the risk map and the soil moisture map before and after the wildfire, the correlation was grasped. A new forest fire risk index that combines drought factors such as soil moisture, Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), and Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) will be needed in the future.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
• /
• v.38 no.5_2
• /
• pp.765-779
• /
• 2022

This study evaluates the accuracy in identifying the burned area in South Korea using multi-temporal data from Sentinel-2 MSI and Landsat 8/9 OLI. Spectral indices such as the Difference Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR), Relative Difference Normalized Burn Ratio (RdNBR), and Burned Area Index (BAI) were used to identify the burned area in the March 2022 forest fire in Uljin. Based on the results of six indices, the accuracy to detect the burned area was assessed for four satellites using Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8/9, respectively. Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8/9 produce images every 16 and 10 days, respectively, although it is difficult to acquire clear images due to clouds. Furthermore, using images taken before and after a forest fire to examine the burned area results in a rapid shift because vegetation growth in South Korea began in April, making it difficult to detect. Because Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8/9 images from February to May are based on the same date, this study is able to compare the indices with a relatively high detection accuracy and gets over the temporal resolution limitation. The results of this study are expected to be applied in the development of new indices to detect burned areas and indices that are optimized to detect South Korean forest fires.